MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Republicans praise Obama's national security team

President-Elect Barack Obama will on Monday formally nominate his former rival Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State when he unveils his heavyweight national security team that has been welcomed by Republicans and military officers for its conservativeness and experience.

Mr Obama was also expected to publicly say he has asked President George W Bush's Defence Secretary Robert Gates to stay on at the Pentagon and to name former marine General James Jones as his national security adviser. They will assume the reins of control amid multiple challenges, which now include defusing rising tensions between India and Pakistan over the terror rampage in Bombay. The Obama team must also work out how to extricate US troops from Iraq, and how to address deteriorating conditions in the war in Afghanistan and the Iranian effort to build a nuclear bomb. All this will come with the US economy in meltdown and successive market and financial crises cascading around the world, threatening to further destabilise a fractious global security environment. Pending Senate confirmation, Susan Rice, a long-time foreign policy aide to Mr Obama, is also set to be formally named as US ambassador to the United Nations, while retired admiral Dennis Blair is set to be Director of National Intelligence. Though Mr Obama built his campaign on his opposition to the Iraq war, he has opted for politically safe choices now that the business of governing is approaching. Some liberal supporters have been disappointed by the centrist character of his appointees, accusing the president-elect of appointing people who represent experience, not the change that Mr Obama promised. Conservatives, however, have praised Mr Obama for making selections that reach across party lines and match the hype that he would summon the country's best and brightest around him in a "team of rivals" modeled on Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. John Warner, who recently retired from the senate and served 30 years on the senate armed services committee, said: "The triumvirate of Gates, Clinton and Jones to lead Obama's national security team instills great confidence at home and abroad, and further strengthens the growing respect for the president-elect's courage and ability to exercise sound judgment in selecting the 'best and the brightest' to implement our nation's security policies." Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the senate foreign relations committee, described the team as "excellent". "Bipartisan support of this team really is of the essence right now," Mr Lugar said on ABC. Gen Jones is a foreign policy moderate, as well having 40 years of military experience. The former supreme allied commander of Nato seems to have got the nod for his experience in Afghanistan, where he has travelled on research missions for the Pentagon. Mrs Clinton is familiar to the military top brass through her time on the senate armed services committee, and is regarded as a centrist with hawkish inclinations. The Obama team has planned for a while to unveil the national security team after the Thanksgiving holiday but the timing took on additional urgency after the terrorists in Bombay massacred nearly 200 people, including at least five Americans. The popularity she earned travelling alongside her husband as First Lady may be instantly useful in South Asia, where the couple were particularly popular. An early goal for Mrs Clinton could be persuading the Indians to use the attacks to build understanding with Asif Ali Zardari, the new Pakistani president, whom Washington thinks is serious about tackling terrorism and recalcitrant factions of his security forces who aid Islamist militants in Kashmir and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. After past provocations, such as the 2001 attack by Kashmiri militants on the parliament Delhi parliament and the bombing of the US embassy in Kabul earlier this year, the Bush administration has been able to urge restraint on the Indians. But with Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, already facing criticism for not fighting back earlier, the situation could be highly inflamed by the time Mr Obama is inaugurated on Jan 20. Over the weekend, Mr Obama telephoned Mr Singh to "express condolences for those killed in the terrorists attacks and to let him know that his thoughts and prayers are with the people of India and all who were affected by the attack," an aide in Obama's transition office said. Repeating a phrase he has used often since his electoral victory on Nov 4, Mr Obama told the prime minister that there is one US president at a time "but that he would be monitoring the situation closely". (Agencies)